Pumpkin cookies are often super cakey, and mochi is wonderfully chewy. What if you just replace the regular flour in pumpkin cookies with mochiko? Answer: Jessica worries and spends lots of quality time with google.

The solution that I was happiest with and ended up using came from Joy of Baking, where it’s suggested to use 7/8 cup rice flour to 1 cup all-purpose flour. Mochiko is actually sweet rice flour (or glutinous rice flour), but I decided to give it a shot anyway. To make life easier, I went with her recipe for pumpkin cookies. 2 cups all-purpose flour? 1 3/4 cups mochiko! Maybe too easy?

My uneasiness with flour experimentation and the lack of daylight at 1 a.m. means no process photos. You can see that they turned out looking like totally legit cookies, though! They tasted like totally legit delicious cookies, too.

Sarah from Simply Cooked was our November Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to create something truly unique in both taste and technique! We learned how to cook using tea with recipes from Tea Cookbook by Tonia George and The New Tea Book by Sara Perry.

Cooking with tea? Interesting…though I almost didn’t do this challenge. The vegetarian recipe provided sounded good, but potentially bland. I did it though, and my instincts were correct, to me at least.

Ahh, fall. Your days are shorter, the air is cooler, and leaves crunch beneath our feet.

Wait…what’s that other sound?

Bundt pans trembling with fear! Or is it with glee?

That’s right, we’re hurtling towards National Bundt Day (November 15!), made popular and most earnestly celebrated by Mary the Food Librarian. Last year was my first time paying tribute to the curvaceous confection, and thus the Zebra Bundt Cake was born. This year’s offering is much more visually tame, but the flavors certainly make up for that. Continue reading →

People of Austin: if you happen to see me at Whole Foods on a Saturday night, it’s not because I ran out of organic potatoes for that dinner party I’m hosting. Au contraire, with the exception of last weekend, there most likely is not a social gathering at my abode. (Wait, do felines count?) I am probably lonely and am using “grocery shopping” as an excuse to be around other human beings. It also gives me the excuse to drive down 6th on a weekend night. Wooo! I’m one wild ‘n crazy gal.

Ironically, I should have been swimming in a sea of fellow bloggers (and delicious food) this weekend at the Foodbuzz Blogger Festival in SF, but am instead drowning in an ocean of regret. Oh, the melodrama! But really, I had been looking forward to this event ever since becoming a Featured Publisher over a year ago and the tweets are kind of killing me. I won’t bore you with my last minute decision to stay, but it was the responsible thing to do. I have learned from this lesson and next time will swiftly kick responsibility in the pants.

So much for the awesome day-by-day recaps I had been hoping to write. I’ll bake something soon though, don’t worry.